Don't let City Council let bad LAPD officers off the hook!

Keep Police Accountable for Misconduct

The City Council is considering changes to the Board of Rights — the disciplinary board that decides how Los Angeles Police Department officers who commit serious misconduct get punished, or if they receive any punishment at all. It is the final check on LAPD officer misconduct, and the City Council should adopt changes to strengthen it to ensure bad officers are punished and removed from the streets.

ACLU SoCal, Black Lives Matter LA, and Community Coalition released a report detailing flaws in the current Board of Rights system and providing suggestions from experts and community organizations to strengthen the Board and the public's faith in the LAPD disciplinary system.

Demand that the City Council adopt the Peoples' Recommendations and reject recommendations intended to weaken LAPD discipline to ensure that even more bad officers escape punishment.

The Board of Rights system is broken because it lets officers escape punishment for serious misconduct and undermines the public's faith in both LAPD discipline and the officers they encounter on the streets. City Council has an opportunity to strengthen the disciplinary process for LAPD officers and help restore the public's faith in a broken system -- it must not squander it.

ACLU SoCal, BLM-LA, and Community Coalition analyzed decades of expert research and critiques of the Board of Rights and put together the Peoples' Recommendations for how the Board of Rights system should be changed.

I endorse the Peoples' Recommendations, which call for:

- Real civilians
The civilians on the Board of Rights must represent the diversity of Los Angeles and be selected through an open and transparent process within City Council. This includes making sure that people with past arrests are not excluded, and adhere to the common-sense understanding that “civilians” do not include retired police officers.

- Real oversight
Board of Rights outcomes and voting patterns should be reported regularly and hearings audited, so that the public knows what is happening behind closed doors. All disciplinary records that are public under the Right To Know Act should be posted by the Department.

- Real advocacy
Trained attorneys should defend the Department’s recommended discipline instead of using LAPD officers with no legal training to go up against seasoned defense attorneys.

- Real accountability
Standardize penalties and ensure violations against the public like excessive force or filing false police reports result in more significant penalties than they do currently.

- Real training
All Board of Rights panelists should have an accurate and unbiased understanding of issues the Board routinely considers, such as excessive force and domestic violence, and training should include community-based experts.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]
[Your Address]

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